


I Never Saw the Stars Until I Met You

by Derin



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2253039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern-day AU featuring Erin's OCs Kathryn and Astrane.</p><p>Happy birthday Erin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Never Saw the Stars Until I Met You

“Skype me every day,” Jessica whispered, squeezing her friend tightly in her arms.

“Every day,” Kat agreed, hugging her back.

The PA announced their flight.

\-----------------------

“America is massive,” Kat said. “Everything has such a sense of space.”

“First day of school today, though, right?” Jessica replied. “I bet that feels a lot more cramped. All ready to drop your u's and act like a spoiled movie star?”

Kat just laughed.

\------------------------

“A boy invited me to a party,” Kat shrugged.

“After just a few days? Wow, aren't you the popular one. I bet he thinks you're all exotic, with your fancy foreign accent and deep knowledge of... quick, find me a stereotype.”

“Train scheduling? Anyway, I don't think it's like that. There are a bunch of people.”

“Is it like that for you, though?”

“He's cute. But too old for me.”

“Snob.”

\--------------------

“Now she's going to a party!” Kat's mother whispered where she thought Kat couldn't hear. “I don't like it.”

“She's been to parties before. Calm down.”

“That was with neighbours. People we knew. Everyone here is a stranger!”

“They're also our neighbours now. She's a teenager, Alice. We can't lock her up and throw away the key. Let her make her friends.”

\--------------------

Tom handed her a plastic cup. “Punch?”

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Kat joked.

But Tom just smiled a strained smile. “The Sharing has a pretty strict underage drinking policy. It's non-alcoholic, trust me.”

“Smart.” It took three cups of punch to relax her enough that she didn't make a fuss when the boys dragged her inside.

\---------------------

To see and smell and feel and hear through something so large, something with senses so detailed, was amazing. It had been warned about the troublesome nature of the holdover of natural reactions in the muscular nerves and central nervous system. It clamped down effortlessly on the nervous system's panicked struggle, silent screaming.

“Report,” its superior said.

“Astrane 475, reporting for duty.”

The residual impulses of the central nervous system fought back, confused.

\-------------------------

“How was the party?” Kat's father asked.

“It was great fun,” Kat's mouth replied. “I'm thinking of joining this local community group.” Kat's hand held out a pamphlet.

\-------------------------

One message from Jessica on Skype. The strange compulsion that had taken over her muscles didn't allow Kat to check it.

\-------------------------

“Your grades are slipping,” Mr Nevins told a student sternly in the hallway. “At this rate you'll have to repeat the year. Think of what that could do to your future.”

The student's face fell, fear in their eyes.

“Maybe you should talk to the guidance counsellor,” Mr Nevins said.

\-------------------------

No matter how much she fought, how much she tried, Kat couldn't move the mouse the fraction of an inch required to open the Skype client.

\-------------------------

Three days, and she had her limbs back. The screams weren't worth it, she thought.

Kat picked herself up off the floor of the cage and rubbed at the bruises on her arms.

“They threw you in pretty hard. Are you okay?” The speaker was outside the cage, looking at her with concern. She knew him.

“Mr Tidwell? What are you doing out there?”

“You're not going to like the answer to that question.”

“You're working with them!”

\-------------------------

“I hate it here,” Kat's mother said.

“We can't afford to move back,” her father pointed out. “And your work is here. You'll get used to it.”

“This whole thing was a mistake.”

“But look at how happy Kat is. At how many friends she's making.”

\-------------------------

The student stepped out of the guidance counsellor's office, looking a little happier. Kat saw the Sharing pamphlet in their hand.

\-------------------------

Two emails from Jessica. _I have to talk to her. She'll be worried. I have to..._

[If I speak to her, will you shut up about it?]

Kat took a moment to realise what had happened. The slug had never spoken to her before.

 _Yes,_ she thought.

Her hand moved, opened the Skype client.

\-------------------------

“I was starting to get worried that maybe you'd died or something,” the girl on the other end joked.

Astrane dug through its host's memories to find the appropriate response. Laughing together. Comforting each other. Homework.

 _Make a joke about the food,_ the host's central nervous system told her.

[If you're trying to warn – ]

_Do you think I want her to know about this?!_

\-------------------------

“We have to fight them,” Kat insisted.

“There is more than one way of fighting,” Tidwell replied.

“You don't seem to be doing any fighting.”

“And what has your fighting bought you? More bruises?”

She covered her arms. “So you just sold yourself out for food and movies and... what are you writing there?”

“Lecture plan. I... Illim... runs a math club on-campus.”

“We're being invaded! You're an alien slave and you're worried about your math club?!”

“I'm also an educator,” he pointed out.

\-------------------------

“Stop projecting what you want onto our daughter,” Kat's mother snapped. “She's not some kind of weapon you can shape to your argument. She was happy in England, too.”

“Maybe so, but we are where we are. There's no going back, so maybe we should focus on what we can do here.”

Astrane didn't want to open the Skype client until the shouting stopped. Her host's hand trem,bled on the mouse, her nose stung, and Astrane was having trouble remembering that the emotion wasn't its own.

\-------------------------

“Hi, Kat!” Tom called. “Are you coming to the beach clean-up this weekend?”

Kat's body seethed with unexpressed rage. Astrane opened Kat's mouth, and the tone was light and happy. “Of course! We all have to do our bit for the environment, right?”

\-------------------------

The filters were down on Skype. Astrane relied more and more on the host's memories and personality to fill in the perfect thing to say to Jessica, speaking the words without stopping to hear what they were first. Sometimes it was like Astrane wasn't there at all.

\-------------------------

Math club was more interesting than math class.

“So,” Illim said, indicating the little table, “we see that in a Prisoner's Dilemma, it always makes individual sense to defect, but if everyone always defects then everybody loses. But if everybody cooperates, things are better for everyone. Now, not every choice in life resoolves into a Prisoner's Dilemma, but it shows up again and again in both nature and society. You'd expect people to _defect, defect, defect_ , but they don't. What is this magical factor that allows us to cooperate? To build societies and services and benefit everyone?”

“Trust,” Astrane said instantly, speaking the word her host supplied before she was aware of what she was saying. She blushed. But Illim merely gave her a small smile and inclined Tidwell's head.

\-------------------------

[The sad thing is that we built this system,] Kat noted as they watched a red=eyed student feverishly sort through his locker. [We put kids in buildings and tell them that their grades are more important than anything. We tell them not to listen to peer pressure and then lock them in a pressurised situation with hundred of peers. We tell them that their value depends on a letter grade and then give control of that grade to the system. All you had to do was give control of the pressure guage to some of your own slaves and offer them respite with your little community group.]

[Humans are inherently flawed,] Astrane agreed. [Your system was already broken. We merely wait at the cracks.]

[And make them wider. But it's telling that we have a system where you can do this and nobody even notices.]

\-------------------------

“Why every three days, though?” Kat asked the woman standing next to her in the cage. “My Yeerk tells me nothing. We come here every three days.”

“If they don't absorb sunlight in the Pool every three days, they starve,” the woman observed. “If you have a way to fight, do it then, after three days. If you can keep them away from their food source, they die. You'd be free.”

“Has anybody ever done that?”

“Not alone.”

\-------------------------

Astrane watched her host muse about Yeerk biology. Kat asked some questions at first, but gave up after receiving no reply. Astrane worried that Kat might find a way to kill her if she knew too much.If any human could figure such a thing out, Kat could.

Astrane wondered when she began thinking of Kat's central nervous system as an individual mind.

Astrane wondered when she began thinking of herself as a 'she'.

\-------------------------

Kat's parents argued more quietly. They seemed to have realised that Kat could hear. The tense silence in Kat's room was worse.

It was late, late, late, and Kat needed to be up at eight to skype with Jessica. It was late, but they had history homework to do.

[I hate your education system,] Astrane said, unprompted.

[I hate your invading alien force,] Kat shot back, for which Astrane had no reply.

\-------------------------

“This is why grass-roots revolutions are inherently more stable,” Illim explained to the math club, tapping at the equation on the board. “In fact there are several revolutions in history, like the French revolution, that are remembered as grass-roots revolutions but that were actually instigated by upper classes. The unhappy upper classes knew that they had more power, more stability, if they instigated their underlings to carry the revolution instead – and today, the history books still record the revolutions as a glorious uprising of the lower classes.”

Astrane didn't understand what that had to do with math, but she was taken aback by the fire in his eyes. She wondered if it was Illim's passion, or Tidwell's.

\-------------------------

Astrane knelt on the pier, the Hork-Bajir taking her elbow gently to steady her. She could see the cafeteria full of temporarily free humans, taking their couple of hours' grace to communicate, to talk, to eat and entertain themselves and each other.

She dropped into the Pool, swam in solemn near-silence. The Pool was a barren container for feeding, not fun. Occasionally, somebody would squeak to navigate, would brush against her by accident, would not linger.

She wondered why nature had given her people voices at all if they were to so rarely use them.

\-------------------------

Kat took a nap in the cage. She wasn't the first person to do so.

[Why every three days, though?] she asked. [I understand that you can't go longer or you starve, but it seems risky to leave it that long.]

[You don't understand. You have eyes and a tongue and can speak and move about freely. To be in a host is like... it is like being awake.]

[So you're saying that you're basically being pushed to the limit of exhaustion every day for your entire life?]

It sounded a lot less fun when put like that.

\-------------------------

The children were controlled with stress, with exhaustion, by being dictated arbitrary levels of value and importance by their elders. The adults measured their worth by their obedience and excellence in adhering to those metrics, and then smiled and lied and said that everybody was equally valuable. The children saw through those lies.

“Does it ever occur to you that we're just being controlled?” Jessica asked. “I mean, am I ever going to need to know this stuff in the real world? And why do they keep telling us school isn't part of the 'real world', anyway?”

[Do you ever wonder if an alien slug is controlling you?] Kat remarked to Astrane, a touch of humour in her tone.

 _Why do they keep acting like being in the Pool isn't part of the 'real world', anyway?_ Astrane wondered.

\----------------------

“Great turn-out, guys!” Temrash enthused as he and Astrane raised the volleyball net. The numbers were arbitrary.

\----------------------

Slavers or not, aliens were real. Kat had gleaned a few details from the other people in the cages, but she wanted to know more. The Yeerks had a name for their sun; did they have one for their planet? What were natural Yeerk Pools like? Was there one Emperor and Council, or did Yeerks have different nations and only really talked about their own? Were the Yeerks on the homeworld and in space the same nation, or had the Andalite cordon caused a split? Did the Yeerks have myths? Entertainment? Songs and dances and sculptures? Why did they seem to dislike their own natural environment so much?

Astrane wondered these things, too.

\----------------------

[So are their brains like ours? The Hork-Bajir?]

[I don't know. I've never been in one.]

[Isn't it weird that you can interface with all kinds of different alien barins? I mean, we didn't evolve together. Are nerves just the same everywhere, or...?]

[I don't know.]

\----------------------

Astrane finished reading the wikipedia article on the history of Morocco and closed it, finally turning back to the article on nerve differentiation. [You humans have entirely too much information,] she remarked.

Kat just laughed.

\----------------------

Her parents were arguing over stupid things, arbitrary human divisions. America, England. Money. Kat's grades. Things that built humans societies.

The natural unaugmented size of a human society was between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and eighty people. Any more than that, and you needed ideals, nations, currency, laws; false, imaginary things to act like glue, or it fell apart. Kat wondered what the natural unaugmented size of a Yeerk society was.

\----------------------

[So I can get that it's oatmeal,] Kat remarked as the woman was dragged away. [I mean, _something_ here should be poisonous to you. If anything I'm surprised there aren't more things. But I don't get how they can stop eating the oatmeal and still not need Kandrona rays.]

[I don't know. I don't think there's a wikipedia article on Yeerk biology.]

[Maybe someday there will be.]

\----------------------

[Which one is yours?] Kat asked. [Which one is Kandrona?]

[I don't know,] Astrane said.

Kat laughed in her mind. [It's the cornerstone of nearly all your little phrases and what I can actually glean of your mythology, and you don't even know where it is? You don't know where your homeland is?]

[I was born in space,] Astrane confessed. [I don't know what the homeworld is like. And we don't have eyesight. There was just a tank, an artificial pool, not windows or anything.]

[You'd never seen the stars?]

[Not until I met you.]

\----------------------

[Stop trying to talk to me.]

[I'm stuck in my own head. There's nothing else to do.]

[It's unnatural.]

[Anything biologically possible is, by definition, natural.]

[Well, it's wrong. We're not supposed to... look, you're not real. You're a holdover, a bundle of instincts left in an uncontrolled nervous system.]

Kat was more amused than offended. [You're not supposed to humanise us,] she said. [Your society doesn't want you questioning. Sympathising.]

[It's not natural.]

[I'll make you a deal, then, Astrane. I'll stop talking to you, stop making you believe I'm real, on one condition. You find me a single Yeerk with a host who doesn't.]

\----------------------

[They all seem to hate them. To taunt them. To bargain with them.]

[That's still humanisation.]

[I know.]

[Your people hate us. But you idolise our abilities.] Kat sounded amused. [You call us weak, and then utilise our strength.]

[I know.]

[Do you know why that is?]

[Yes. It's denial. It's guilt.]

\----------------------

“This is why,” Illim told the math club, “basic respect is fundamentally necessary for any long-term interaction. You can get a little extra in the short-term by defecting, but then you create all sorts of enemies that suck up your time and energy. It's better to cooperate for a smaller payoff, but only if you can convince others to do so reliably.” He circled one square in the game theory table with red chalk.

\----------------------

Kat watched two Controllers push the kid into a locker, only to be chased off by two more. The second pair were in The Sharing. They invited the kid along.

[Our society really does make this easy, doesn't it?] Kat asked. [Once you see the flaws.]

That seemed to be the problem with any system of control, Astrane mused. It could so easily be turned by people who saw how it worked, if they had enough power to do so, and nobody even realised. Behind them, a couple of students were still sitting in the classroom where the math club had had their meeting. They were debating different cooperative strategies, trying to outline the merits of measuring indivisual success against group success.

A chill went down Kat's spine.

\-------------------------

[Do you think we can do better?] Kat wasked. [Exploit the system?]

[To get more Controllers? You want to help us take over your planet faster?]

[Don't be coy. You can read my mind. You know what I meant.]

[Technically, my words were still correct.]

[Not Controllers. Symbiotes.]

\-------------------------

“We know what you're doing,” Astrane told Illim. “With the math club.”

There was wariness in his eyes, but not fear. “We.” It wasn't a question.

Astrane nodded. “We want to help.”

\-------------------------

[You don't have to go into the cage, you know.]

[It's better this way.]

[Better to be in that thing than relaxing with a movie?]

[If I'm voluntary, they'll watch me. My behaviour reflects on you. If I'm not, they can't blame you for not being able to control me for a couple of hours. I can talk much more freely to the others in the cages, spread words that their Yeerks will see, without casting suspicion on you.]

Astrane dropped into the pool. Kat immediately struggles against the Hork-Bajir holding her.

“Let me go!” she screamed, as they tossed her into the cage.

\-------------------------

“So I'm dating Mick now,” Jessica said casually. She'd times the statement for when Kat was swallowed, and Kat didn't think that was an accident.

“Mick?!” she exclaimed when she'd stopped choking. “Why?!”

“He's actually really sweet. How about you? Any hot American boys or girls on your radar?”

“Right now? No.”

“But you are making friends, right? I mean, we're best friends forevver, but you've got to have somebody closer. Anybody special in your life?”

Neither Kat nor Astrane knew which of them was smiling.

“Yeah,” they said. “There is.”


End file.
